Kerry 💋

Mar 18 Why you need to define your OWN version of success in life.

When you start a blog, you often don't fully know where you want it to take you.

You might have some big ideas or dreams alright, but there's a whole lotta leaping and hoping-for-the-best involved too.

So you just make a commitment to yourself and your audience that come hell or high or water, you're gonna consistently put out a blog post each day/week/fortnight/month/whatever your commitment is, and just trust that a) someone'll choose to read it, and b) that someone can then take something of value from it.

But y'see, if I was to base my level of blog-success on what someone else deemed successful, (such as 100,000 new subscribers each week), I'd most likely spend my days feeling defeated and pretty crap about myself and my blog, right? (Because I don't get anywhere near that amount fyi!) 😂 But y'see my version of blog-success is to just consistently provide a platform that helps, informs, inspires or motivates someone in any way I can, and hopefully become known for the stuff I'm writing about.

So when I got an email from an agency who was managing a campaign for first direct, and they wanted to feature me in said campaign (!!!) my heart wanted to legit pop with both pride and excitement. Not only had someone read my posts and taken some value from them, but I'd become recognised by a professional organisation for my 'niche' (what you write about most/best).

I mean...let's just say it was a happy-dance moment 💃🏻

And with that, I was asked to take a trip down to London for a video shoot to talk about all things quarter-life crisis-ey, write a quote for first direct's own version of a quarter-life thrive guide (I reeeally recommend you give this a read if you feel you might be in some kind of life crisis btw, it's free and has some great tips), and I'd have the chance to meet the big cheese expert of the quarter-life crisis world – the psychologist Dr. Oliver Robinson. (Google him, he knows his stuff!) 😍

Any #imperfectionistas that follow me over on my Instagram might recall the day this all happened 👉🏻it was back in January when I posted this:

I was quite open and honest about the fact that this was unchartered territory for me, and it was totally an opportunity to just scare myself, expand my experience and try something new. And again, my benchmark of success wasn't to be deemed as some kind of 'star of the show' on the day which it may have been for some people. My version of success was just to dig out my ladyballs, say yes, get down to London and give this thing a bash. (So yeah, I'd basically already won!) 😁

So off I went, and as luck would have it, I was also given the opportunity to personally interview Dr. Robinson on the day because we wrapped early! 😍 Life = made! So naturally, in my usual fear-squashing style 😇 rather than declining the opportunity because I was completely unprepared (and had never conducted my own interview before may I add), I just said 'Erm, yes please!', dove in and winged it! 😂 Again, my own version of success wasn't to have bossed the interview like a seasoned pro/Davina McCall (like some people's version of success might have been), but to just take a risk, jump in, do my best and have an amazing impromptu experience to learn from. Take a look...

Now what I loved the most in this (which I regularly harp on about myself!), was Dr. Robinson's advice to anyone feeling like they're either approaching, or right-in-the-thick-of, some kind of life crisis, where they've lost sight of the life they want to lead;

Don’t ever fall for the idea that success is something that other people tell you about or define. You can only define success on your own terms.

— Dr. Oliver Robinson

And as you've read already, it's bizarrely so fittingly my own life's mantra, and my approach to decisions I make every day of the week 👉🏻 Feck comparing your life and your choices with other people's. You don't have to seek approval, you don't have to ask permission, this is your life to craft, mess up, succeed and fail at, exactly as you please!

And why is defining your own version of success in life so important? Because...

You may look like a success to others, but inwardly you feel like a failure, if you’re doing very well at a job that you hate.

— Dr. Oliver Robinson

The only person you shouldn't want to feel a failure to, is YOU.

So it's 100%, A.L.L. ABOUT how you feel about your life.

And it's nothing to do with what anyone else thinks. You're never going to feel contentment and true happiness if you're living your life to please or compete with someone else's tickboxes. It's a losing formula my friend. I promise you ❤️️

But if you live your life and make choices based on you fulfilling your own tickboxes and achieving your own big (and little) wins, then contentment and true happiness is waiting there right for ye. I promise you that too ❤️️

Oh yeah, and just for the craicc, this was the video piece I was in (I gassed on for a LOT longer than this on the day btw! You couldn't shut me up! 😂 Ha!). My actual favourite part of the day though, was sitting around between shoots, just absorbing the cast and crew's crisis stories and soaking all their experiences in. It was like the juiciest, most fun market research day ever! 😁

So what would I love you to take away from this?

There's so much to be honest 😇 but the key things are;

👉🏻 Realise that you write the script for your own life, in your own way.👉🏻 You get to dictate what's successful to you. 👉🏻 No-one is on your exact path, so stop comparing it to others'.👉🏻 Start before you're ready and there's no telling what life might serve up for you!

I hope this has been of some help, inspiration or motivation for you lovely. And I hope it spurs you on to want to start creating your own, badass definition of success.

You're an absolute beaut, never forget that 😉 until next weekend my lil pumpernickel 💋

What is The Imperfect Life®?

It’s Your Flawsome, Happy Strategy – a toolkit of real-life products and mindset resources to help you create the life you want (and love the gorgeously, messy adventure of creating it). It’s here to help you turn down the noise of some ‘perfect perception’ you feel you have to live up to, and crank up the volume of your own most powerful instincts. This strategy believes that it’s okay to not be okay, but it’s also okay to change your story if and when you want to. It believes that you’re absolutely enough as you are, but also to never feel ashamed if you wanna be more. It believes that you already possess all you need to start, but it’s also here to help you draw a roadmap to guide you on your way. It believes that your flawsome path ahead certainly won’t be easy, but because of that – it also might just be the coolest thing to ever happen to you.